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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26933323">Masochism</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLockedTomb/pseuds/TheLockedTomb'>TheLockedTomb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff and Angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:01:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,330</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26933323</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLockedTomb/pseuds/TheLockedTomb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Saint of Duty was armed and ready for anything from Commander Wake except for forgiveness.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gideon the First/Wake | Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Masochism</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Week four (prompt was "first") of The People’s Tomb jam on Discord.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gideon kept both hands tight on his upright spear as he glanced around the sparse room. He probably shouldn't have come here, but Commander Wake had a way of telling him what to do that relieved his conscience and wiped his thoughts clean. Scowling, Gideon glanced behind him and saw the hideout's window overlooking the street was readily housing a rifle with a scope and silencer. The ammunition was probably reverse-engineered from Herald scrap like that other BOE insurgent’s misguided bullet that wasn’t letting his trapezius muscle heal.</p><p> </p><p>"Come on, now. Let's mend you up, Gideon."</p><p> </p><p>He didn't answer, just followed her to the bathroom down a short hallway. He would always be a gesture for the hand of the Kindly Prince Undying, but now he was a possessed finger resisting the clench of a fist. Idle hands are the devil's workshop, or so the saying used to go, and he'd lived too long without heartfelt purpose to resist this woman's zealotry even if it was heretical.</p><p> </p><p>He twisted slightly to make it past the tight doorframe into the cramped room and guardedly watched her fetch a scuffed metal box from the sink cabinets below. He couldn't recall now exactly how this truce had developed so quickly, but it felt right and was honestly the only thing that made sense anymore.</p><p> </p><p>"Put your spear down," she ordered without looking at him.</p><p> </p><p>He obediently propped his spear in the corner. He was practiced at following commands without examining every aspect. Any humane self-reflection still left in his husk must be inherited from Pyrrha.</p><p> </p><p>"Take off your shirt," she told him.</p><p> </p><p>He impassively peeled off his blood-soaked garment, staring stonily ahead at the wall. Wake briefly glanced over his body with uncomfortable familiarity and then took a step closer, considering his wound more closely and tilting her head slightly to the side. Animalistic urge swelled in his chest as he saw her neck offered up like that. And it was an offer, wasn't it?</p><p> </p><p>Unbidden, he vividly remembered when John once said in the early times over tea that vulnerability was never exposed without being an offer. They'd been arguing about a battle strategy that included the prospect of high civilian casualties. This wasn't the war, but still, there was her neck bared openly. Gideon could rip out her throat with his teeth and try to gulp her down whole just as he'd done to Pyrrha, taking in everything desirable and holy, keeping her with him and inside him forever. With that blazing fire, he might even feel human again. His heart sped up, blood rushing to beat in his ears and confusingly swell in inconvenient lower places. His mouth watered, making him swallow hard and feel disgusted with himself. Always, always disgusted with himself.</p><p> </p><p>Their eyes locked for a moment. Wake stepped back then, eyeing him with reservation. He clenched his eyes - no, he clenched Pyrrha's eyes shut. Wake couldn't truly imagine what monstrosity had been behind that hungry expression, but she always could see him for the zombie he was, and that was preferable to being mistaken for an angel of God.</p><p> </p><p>Pyrrha had believed Gideon was beyond reproach, but what would she think of him now? They hadn't known what God would ask of them, he reminded himself again like a prayer or a bygone lullaby. Such naive children they'd been, sitting on the knees of an omnipotent cult leader. Youth is gone when regrets finally take the place of hopes and dreams.</p><p> </p><p>Wake loudly shut the toilet's lid and patted the rim. "Make yourself comfortable," she said briskly.</p><p> </p><p>Gideon clenched his jaw and sat down stiffly, shifting to hopefully hide the tightened front of his pants. He watched while Wake unlatched the box, lifting and sliding open little trays of medicine and steel instruments and gauze. She was the perfect lure for a predator, bright and quick. Gideon studied her hands, staring fixedly as clear liquid was drawn carefully into a plex syringe. Wake took surgical tweezers out of the medical kit and moved closer to his shoulder to assess the injury, heating his skin underneath her gaze.</p><p> </p><p>"This is going to hurt," she warned just before sticking the tweezers in deep to pluck out the bullet. Gideon glared at the sonic cleaner compartment across from him. She then plunged the needle into his gaping flesh, squirting cold wetness into the wound and drawing out slowly while the syringe emptied.</p><p> </p><p>She hadn't lied about the pain, and from the measuring look that Wake gave him, she'd expected more of a reaction. Gideon stayed silent as the wound fizzled audibly and knitted together, flesh calling to flesh. Wake dabbed away leaking fluid and casually brushed off crusted blood, leaving the skin whole and unscarred. Wake had an immense amount of experience with this sort of thing, he suddenly realized. He wondered who else had sat here in her bathroom as she patched them up. A feral curl of jealousy sprang up to claw at his throat as she dropped the bullet and recapped needle into a half-full sharps container between the toilet and the sink.</p><p> </p><p>"I don't have any lollipops or decorative bandages." Wake's lips lifted unexpectedly into a rueful half-smile as she said it, and the playful self-deprecation made her seem like a stranger.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn't aware how she was looking at him right now, but it'd been happening more frequently, especially after he lost memories. Those mental gaps were becoming more common, too, and it terrified him what kind of depraved horror his traitorous mind couldn't bear to accept and was protecting him from. Was disassociative amnesia even possible for a Lyctor? He still couldn't remember how he'd gotten that shoulder wound in the first place. He burningly resented her pity and achingly craved her kindness.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm a bit old for needing you to kiss it better." His voice came out more tired, less bitingly sarcastic than he'd meant to sound.</p><p> </p><p>His comment earned him a raised eyebrow. He waited for her to make a snarky comment or derisively laugh. Anything but let this strange tension continue. She merely looked back down at her medical supplies and started shifting drawers back into place inside the box.</p><p> </p><p>"Think it would help?" Her voice was thick and slightly lower. It was as if she'd forgotten who she was speaking to again.</p><p> </p><p>"I don't know. No one's ever tried," he said gruffly, but his entire body had quickened, tensing into high alert. He really needed to leave. Now.</p><p> </p><p>Wake snapped the latches closed on the med kit and turned her head to look at him, her eyes unnervingly warm with both sympathy and desire that he didn't deserve in the slightest, especially from her. He was tight and contained as she put her hand lightly on his healed shoulder and bent forward. She hesitated for a moment, a pause to let him know she was undecided. It was a pause that tortured him with masochistic hope, both that she'd keep going and that she'd stop.</p><p> </p><p>Then her lips were brushing his softly. He automatically pulled back just out of reach, stopping her, restraining himself... and then in the next breath, he closed his eyes and kissed her back, silently begging for more. Her breath hitched in her chest, a tiny noise, and she deepened the kiss.</p><p> </p><p><em>Saint</em>. The word exploded in his head as his mind roared. He couldn't stop himself, lunging for her and crushing her into his arms. He cradled her against his chest, pulling her up to stand pressed against him as if absorbing her essence. She knew what he was, his unforgivable first sin and his myriad of millennia in servitude to a false god, and she forgave him in a way that purified him and made him loathe himself even more. And she was kissing him back, matching his passion and amplifying it, arms thrown around his neck. She was the only true saint left.</p>
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